Zoé Beauval

Zoé Beauval has been a doctoral student at the Université Paul Valéry – Montpellier III since 2021. Her interest in the history of medicine led her to study the anatomical and myological plates of the painter Jacques Gamelin (1738-1803). Her thesis project, in partnership with the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Carcassonne, is supported by the Association Nationale de la Recherche et de la Technologie. Her research focuses on religious painting in Languedoc in the second half of the 18th century, networks of artists and amateurs, and artistic trajectories outside the academies.

After taking out a loan from his protector in Toulouse, Jacques Gamelin stayed in Rome from summer 1765 to winter 1774. Outside the authority of the Académie de France in Rome, he rubbed shoulders with international artistic circles, the precursors of the neoclassical movement, and contributed to the profound changes taking place in the art world between 1770 and 1780. The residency at Villa Medici will enable us to deepen our knowledge of this crucial decade in his career, by consulting public archives, his works preserved in situ and by confronting the artistic culture of the Roman Settecento.